#12 - Must Be True

[Nina]

I don't quite get why answer E is correct. Since the passage didn't really define what kind of work counts as a "forgery", we only know that a forgery lacks the quality of innovation. Does that mean, a work can be a forgery as long as it lacks innovation, even if it didn't mean to imitate any particular original work?

Thanks a lot!

[Steve Stein]

Hey Nina,

That's a tough one, despite the fact that it references the main focus of the passage:
The Disciples at Emmaus is the forgery discussed throughout the passage, and although the painter forged the name and style of a Dutch master, the forgery was not a copy of any particular work.

I hope that's helpful!

~Steve

[Nina]

oh, yeah, that makes sense. Thank you very much, Steve!

[hrhyoo]

Could you please explain why A is incorrect? I picked A since even a highly reputed critic could not correctly identify a forged work, there must be considerable debates when trying to ID forgeries.

Thanks in advance.


H

[Paul Marsh]

Hi Hanna! There is just not enough direct support in the passage for Answer Choice (A). It certainly is possible that the critic disagreed because of a debate about forgery identification criteria, but we don't know that from the passage. It is just as possible that there is no debate about the criteria used to identify forgeries, but rather that particular critic was just an obstinate contrarian! As I'm sure you've experienced, some people just won't change their minds about certain things, even if all the evidence is against them! For these Must be True questions, we want to be able to point to something concrete in the passage that provides direct support for our answer choice. The support just isn't there for (A); the connection you drew requires some imagination and guesswork. On the other hand, we know for sure that Answer Choice (E) is true since as Steven mentioned above, the passage makes it clear that the forgery discussed by this passage is not a copy of any particular work. Hope that helps!

[hrhyoo]

Hi Paul,

I didn't realize until later on that the painting wasn't a replica - I assumed that Emmaus was a replica. I'll try not to be imaginative and simply stick to the passage given. Having said that, I am still working on reading faster and referring back to the passage more often than I normally do. Why is it so hard...

Thanks again for your help!

Cheers,


Hanna

[nyc431]

Do we know that Emmaus is not a replica only because the passage does not state that it is a replica (in the first paragraph)? Or are there other clues throughout the passage?

[Adam Tyson]

That inference is based on a number of clues throughout the passage, nyc431, rather than any explicit statement one way or another. For example, the author refers to the painting as "Han van Meegeren’s The Disciples at Emmaus" rather than as van Meegeren's copy of a Vermeer painting by that name. Also the reference to that painting being "painted under the forged signature" of Vermeer, rather than saying the painting as a whole was a forgery. It's this series of implications, along with there being no mention of the painting being a copy, that allows us to make this inference. The passage thus strongly supports the inference that the painting was an original by van Meegeren that he was passing off as a Vermeer, rather than a copy of an actual Vermeer painting.

[miriamson07]

This one was really hard for me to infer that the forgery was an original, and not a copy of another original. I assumed that an artist would be able to paint more than one version of their own original, and one of those could be considered as the better work by critics, as would be the case described in lines 10-11.

I do see how the sentence “Han van Meegeren's The Disciples at Emmaus (1937)—painted under the forged signature of the acclaimed Dutch master Jan Vermeer” could imply that Han van Meegeren’s painting was an original. But on the other hand, it also seems possible that “Han van Meegeren’s The Disciples at Emmaus” is short for “Han van Meegeren’s rendering of The Disciples at Emmaus.” I suppose the phrase implies originality more strongly, but this is such a subtle clue that I find it hard to believe the LSAT would expect us to pick up on this.

I thought that we were supposed to avoid making inferences as much as possible on the LSAT, and that it would serve us best to stick to what is stated explicitly in the stimuli. Is it the case that with “most strongly supported” questions, we would want to be ready to do a good amount of inference?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi miriamson,

You're not alone in not realizing that a forgery doesn't necessarily have to be a copy of another painting. In everyday life, that is probably what most people think a forgery is, a fake copy of a famous painting.

The way that the term "forgery" is used in the passage is different than how it is commonly understood, and this difference is not easy to spot, which is what makes this question so difficult.

You wrote,

"I thought that we were supposed to avoid making inferences as much as possible on the LSAT, and that it would serve us best to stick to what is stated explicitly in the stimuli."

That's generally correct, however, in this case, by assuming that a forgery must be a copy of an original painting even though the passage never states this, you actually are making an assumption that you shouldn't make here.

According to the passage, what makes a painting a forgery is a lack of originality of vision (line 39). Using techniques that are no longer original but trying to pass them off as if they were original as van Meegeren did, would qualify as a forgery.